BR  307   H7 

Hough,  Lynn  Harold,  1877 

The  significance  of  the 

Protestant  reformation 


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The  Significance  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation 


A  Series  of  Lectures  Delivered  in  Connection  with 
the  Observance  of  the  Four  Hundredth  Anniver- 
sary   of  the    Posting   of   the   Theses   by    Luther 


BY 

LYNN  HAROLD  HOUGH 

Profetsor  of  Historical  Theology  in  Garrett  Biblical  Institute 


^S}^  OF  Pni;Vj>5: 


^'^^ 


MAY     1     191;: 


^ 


■'^^09iui  P^'"^^ 


THE   ABINGDON   PRESS 
NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
LYNN    HAROLD    HOUGH 


CONTENTS 

LECTURE  PAGE 

I.    The  Background  of  the  Reformation      7 

II.    The  Religious  Aspects  of  the  Ref- 
ormation     30 

III.  The  Political  Aspects  of  the  Ref- 

ormation     56 

IV.  Completing  the  Reformation 81 


LECTURE  I 

THE  BACKGROUND  OF  THE 
REFORMATION 

Things  always  begin  before  they 
start.  This  paradox  must  constantly 
be  kept  in  mind  in  the  study  and  the 
interpretation  of  historical  move- 
ments. The  fact  before  the  fact  must 
be  sought  out  and  brought  into  the 
clear  light  of  knowledge. 

If  the  sixteenth  century  did  not 
come  trailing  clouds  of  glory,  it  did 
come  trailing  clouds,  and  all  these 
clinging  remains  of  an  older  life  must 
be  in  the  thought  of  the  man  who 
would  understand  this  age  of  the 
world's  spiritual  rebirth.  When  a 
man  with  responsive  imagination  and 
intellectual  and  ethical  sympathy  has 
lived  over  again  the  life  of  the  earlier 
7 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

ages,  he  will  admit  that  there  was 
glory  of  light  as  well  as  glory  of 
purple  in  the  clouds  trailed  by  the 
sixteenth  century  when  it  came.  He 
will  also  see  that  there  were  dark 
clouds  fairly  bursting  with  potential 
storms. 

The  sixteenth  is  one  of  the  great 
melting-pot  centuries  of  the  world's 
life.  Here  we  see  the  meeting  and 
combination  of  things  different 
enough  in  origin  and  inner  spirit. 
There  is  all  the  cataclysmic  energy 
of  the  sudden  rushing  together  of 
strange  and  diverse  forces.  You  may 
be  confused  as  you  watch  it  all,  you 
may  be  terrified  by  the  wild  energies 
you  see  in  action,  but  you  cannot 
deny  that  it  is  an  age  infinitely  alive. 
And  soon  you  come  to  feel  that  you 
are  not  looking  upon  scenes  of  de- 
struction. You  are  watching  the 
making  of  a  new  age. 

The  Middle  Ages  were  as  much 
8 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

characterized  by  what  they  had  for- 
gotten as  by  what  they  had  remem- 
bered. Various  nations  had  pro- 
nounced great  words  in  the  ancient 
life  of  the  world.  The  older  Oriental 
nations  had  made  arbitrary  and  far- 
flung  power  a  part  of  the  imagina- 
tion and  a  part  of  the  actual  life  of 
man.  The  river  valleys  of  that  older 
world  had  brought  forth  men  who 
dreamed  of  one  stern  will  bending 
men  to  its  own  purpose,  and  the  older 
empires  had  been  built  about  one  ab- 
solute authority. 

Greece  had  represented  the  dawn 
of  confidence  in  man.  The  typical 
Greek  felt  quite  ready  to  meet  one  of 
his  deities  with  a  kind  of  unabashed 
friendliness  far  enough  from  the 
crushing  awe  with  which  many  na- 
tions bowed  before  their  gods.  If  the 
Greeks  were  descended  from  the 
gods,  they  had  brought  a  good  deal 
of  the  splendor  of  Olympus  with 
9 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

them,  and  had  taken  more  than  fire 
from  heaven.  To  the  Greek  Hfe  was 
not  something  to  be  deHvered  from; 
it  was  something  to  be  enjoyed.  He 
was  seeking  self-expression  rather 
than  salvation.  So  out  of  the  Greek 
spirit  there  came  the  sense  of  liberties 
which  enlarge  and  inspire  men,  of 
artistic  expression  which  captures 
dreams  of  beauty  in  speech  of  haunt- 
ing, stately  majesty  and  in  material 
forms  which  bend  to  the  quality  of 
invisible  inspiration.  Out  of  the 
Greek  spirit  came  that  exhaustless 
interest  and  curiosity  which  touched 
experience  from  a  thousand  angles, 
and  gave  Aristotle  the  materials  for 
an  encyclopedic  interpretation  of  life. 
Out  of  the  Greek  spirit  came  a  climb- 
ing idealism  which  reached  its  climax 
and  its  noblest  expression  in  Plato. 
Greek  pessimism  was  not  the  Greek 
spirit  in  its  hour  of  achievement.  It 
was  the  Greek  spirit  facing  the  inade- 

lO 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

quacy  of  its  achievement.  The  genius 
of  Greece  was  a  confident  gay  behef 
in  Hfe  and  man.  And  when  this  confi- 
dent, glad  zest  had  perished,  only  the 
form  of  Greece  was  left  behind.  The 
spirit  had  departed. 

Rome  did  not  represent  an  inner 
spirit  of  inspiration.  It  stood  for 
a  practical  power  of  organization. 
Greece  loved  the  world;  Rome  ruled 
it.  Greece  inspired  men;  Rome  con- 
trolled them.  Greece  was  interested 
in  truth  and  beauty ;  Rome  was  inter- 
ested in  management  and  expediency. 
A  Roman  never  asked  first  if  a  thing 
were  true.  He  asked  first  how  it 
would  fit  in  with  his  plans  of  practical 
administration,  Greece  was  inter- 
ested in  realities;  Rome  was  inter- 
ested in  relationships. 

Moving  in  this  severely  practical 
fashion,  Rome  reached  a  sense  of  hu- 
man values  as  distinct  from  national 
values.  Confronted  with  the  prob- 
II 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

lem  of  ruling  all  kinds  of  people  in 
all  kinds  of  places,  Rome  discovered 
that  despite  amazing  differences,  and 
under  them  all,  there  is  only  one  kind 
of  a  people  and  there  is  only  one  kind 
of  a  place.  It  was  a  politician's  con- 
tribution to  the  philosophy  of  human 
life.  This  gave  a  dignity  to  develop- 
ing Roman  law,  and  in  a  measure 
compensated  for  the  lack  of  creative 
inspiration  in  Roman  life.  What 
Rome  lacked  in  ideas  it  made  up  in 
shrewd  practical  efficiency. 

The  Hebrews  had  fairly  staggered 
under  the  weight  of  the  treasure  they 
were  carrying  for  the  world.  From 
them  the  world  received  the  inesti- 
mable gift  of  the  knowledge  of  a  God 
with  a  character.  The  nation  itself 
did  not  always  have  a  character,  at 
least  not  a  good  one.  But  it  was  per- 
petually haunted  by  the  sense  of  a 
God  who  hated  its  sins,  and  pas- 
sionately sought  to  form  its  life  into 

12 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

likeness  to  his  own  righteous  char- 
acter. The  Greek  often  blushed  for 
his  gods.  He  had  little  reason  to 
blush  for  himself  in  the  presence  of 
his  gods.  They  had  done  all  the  bad 
things  he  was  ever  tempted  to  do. 
The  Hebrews  suffered  the  perpetual 
discomfort  of  worshiping  a  God  who 
had  no  vices,  and  He  had  virtues — 
such  towering,  impossible  virtues  of 
righteousness  and  goodness  as  daz- 
zled men's  thought.  In  the  presence 
of  such  a  God  you  instinctively  felt 
that  life  was  intolerable  unless  you 
could  be  changed  and  made  like  the 
divine  hero  whom  you  worshiped. 

So  in  the  deepest  sense  the  Hebrew 
religion  became  the  religion  of  ethical 
salvation.  The  people  who  did  not 
rise  to  the  height  of  this  conception 
made  their  share  in  the  Hebrew  reli- 
gion a  matter  of  contented  observ- 
ance of  ritual.  They  were  all  the 
time  tending  downward  toward  the 
13 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

conception  common  enough  in  the 
world,  of  salvation  through  cere- 
mony. The  prophetic  and  the  priestly 
elements  in  Israel  tended  to  center 
respectively  about  these  two  concep- 
tions. 

Christianity  was,  humanly  speak- 
ing, the  successor  of  the  prophetic 
religion  of  Israel.  The  God  with  a 
character  now  fills  all  the  horizon. 
In  Jesus  Christ  he  has  come  into  hu- 
man life  for  the  rescue  of  men. 

The  glorified  abstractions  of  the 
Greeks  are  met  by  the  concrete  ethical 
and  spiritual  victory  of  Jesus.  Ideals 
are  met  by  achievements,  and  in  the 
death  of  Jesus  the  supreme  moral 
principles  are  translated  from  the 
realm  of  ideas  into  the  realm  of  ac- 
tions. Men  can  now  be  friendly  with 
God,  not  because  they  have  a  God 
who  is  a  sinner,  but  because  they  have 
a  God  who  will  make  them  saints.  So 
Christianity  spread  in  the  Roman 
14 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

empire  like  a  moral  contagion  scatter- 
ing the  infection  of  goodness  in  a  bad 
world. 

Then  in  the  fifth  century  came  the 
end  of  all  things.  Saint  Augustine's 
City  of  God  is  the  attempt  of  a  brave 
mind  to  keep  from  reeling  under  the 
shock.  Rome  is  breaking  to  pieces. 
The  surest  of  human  institutions  is 
trembling  with  earthquake  vibra- 
tions. Everything  in  the  world  seems 
to  be  coming  apart.  Augustine  finds 
security  and  steadiness  and  hope  as 
he  sees  the  triumph  of  the  City  of  God 
even  at  the  time  when  he  sees  the 
break  up  of  the  city  of  Rome. 

As  we  watch  the  sweeping  move- 
ments of  the  East  Goths,  the  West 
Goths  and  all  the  invading  barbar- 
ians, we  are  likely  to  be  caught  in  de- 
tails and  miss  the  defining  events  of 
the  period.  If  we  would  understand 
the  sixteenth  century,  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  us  to  understand  the 
15 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

fifth  and  those  which  immediately 
followed. 

The  first  thing  which  happened 
was  that  the  church  proved  the  one 
strong  institution  when  all  others 
proved  weak.  Christianity  began  as 
a  new  life.  It  soon  became  a  new  or- 
ganization. And  as  an  organization 
it  became  the  successor  of  the  Roman 
empire.  It  met  the  barbarians  un- 
afraid. The  great  Leo  is  typical  of  a 
powerful  and  efficient  church,  for  it 
was  the  church  which  tamed  the  bar- 
barians. It  appropriated  the  genius 
for  management,  the  skill  in  dealing 
with  men,  and  the  efficiency  and  or- 
ganization which  had  characterized 
Rome.  In  reality  Rome  did  not  fall. 
The  Roman  empire  was  transformed 
into  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 
Augustine's  City  of  God  became  a 
city  of  very  powerful  men. 

Now  a  church  of  powerful  govern- 
ment and  a  church  of  vital  prophecy 
i6 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

are  two  things.  They  may  be  com- 
bined. They  are  rather  more  Hkely 
not  to  be  combined.  So  the  church 
which  aspired  to  be  the  lawgiver  of 
the  world  tended  to  go  back  to  the 
Old  Testament,  and  appropriate  the 
priestly  rather  than  the  prophetic 
elements  there.  While  using  the 
name  of  Jesus,  Rome  was  becoming 
a  new  Judaism  built  about  ritual 
and  ceremonial.  So  the  church  suc- 
ceeded the  Roman  empire  as  or- 
ganizer and  lawgiver,  and  succeeded 
Judaism  as  a  religion  of  brilliant 
complex  ceremonial.  Jesus  himself 
seemed  captured  by  this  powerful 
Judaism  which  wore  his  name,  and 
the  successor  of  all  the  prophets 
seemed  to  have  lived  only  to  lead  to 
a  world  built  about  the  labors  of  a  rit- 
ualistic priesthood. 

The  deeper  life  was  not  drowned  in 
the    ceremonial    any    more    than    in 
ancient  Israel  the  prophetic  had  been 
17 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

lost  in  the  priestly.  But  when  the 
Middle  Ages  were  in  full  action  the 
prophetic  movement  had  completely 
lost  the  place  of  command.  Summing 
it  all  up,  we  may  say  that  the  Middle 
Ages  forgot  the  deepest  things  in 
Greek  life  and  failed  to  emphasize  the 
prophetic  elements  in  Hebrew  and 
Christian  life,  while  putting  in  the 
place  of  dominance  the  ideal  of  or- 
ganization which  came  from  Rome 
and  the  spirit  of  ritual  and  ceremonial 
emphasis  which  tended  to  make  the 
church  a  sort  of  Christian  Judaism. 

From  this  point  of  view  we  can 
readily  see  that  the  Renaissance  was 
a  going  back  to  reclaim  the  Greek 
elements  which  had  been  forgotten, 
and  the  Reformation  was  a  going 
back  to  reclaim  the  Hebrew  and 
Christian  elements  which  had  been 
allowed  to  slip  out  of  sight. 

If  we  take  a  long  view  of  the 
thought  of  men  as  it  relates  itself  to 
i8 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

the  life  of  men,  we  shall  discover  that 
two  ideas  emerge  and  struggle,  and 
that  this  struggle  is*  the  very  essence 
of  history.  Protagoras  announced 
one  idea  when  he  declared  that  the 
individual  man  is  the  measure  of  all 
things.  At  an  earlier  period  Jere- 
miah and  Ezekiel  had  been  dealing 
with  the  same  problem,  when  the 
place  of  the  individual  was  so  boldly 
declared  by  them.  This  view,  with 
its  many  modifications,  builds  itself 
about  the  concrete  man  rather  than 
about  humanity.  It  centers  in  the 
citizen  rather  than  the  state.  It  has 
to  do  with  the  particular  Christian 
rather  than  the  church;  in  short,  it 
builds  life  about  the  individual. 

Socrates  objected  to  the  view  of 
Protagoras,  sensing  the  danger  of  a 
lawless  and  unchecked  individualism, 
in  which  there  would  be  as  many  sys- 
tems claiming  to  be  true  as  there  were 
individuals.  He  made  the  group,  the 
19 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

class,  rather  than  the  individual,  the 
standard.  And  Plato  carried  his 
view  farther  and  made  the  general, 
rather  than  the  particular,  the  real. 
The  individual  in  his  view  was  only 
capable  of  participating  in  the  real- 
ity of  the  general  idea.  Here  we  have 
an  emphasis  on  solidarity  rather  than 
on  individuality.  The  state  is  more 
important  than  the  citizen,  and  when 
this  view  is  interpreted  in  the  forms 
of  Christianity  the  church  is  consid- 
ered more  important  than  the  Chris- 
tian. 

We  would  naturally  suppose  that 
the  emphasis  on  the  individual 
came  first.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  sol- 
idarity had  an  earlier  literary  expres- 
sion than  individuality.  The  Hebrew 
prophets  of  the  eighth  century,  for 
instance,  spoke  in  the  terms  of  soli- 
darity. It  is  Israel,  and  not  the  indi- 
vidual Israelite,  of  whom  they  are 
thinking.   It  is  not  until  the  time  of 

20 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  that  the  indi- 
vidual emerges  in  Hebrew  prophecy. 
And  the  whole  problem — the  same 
problem  at  bottom  though  approached 
in  a  different  way — is  not  raised  in 
Greek  thought  until  the  fifth  century 
B.  C.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  most  of 
ancient  and  mediaeval  thought  and  life 
is  built  about  the  idea  of  solidarity 
rather  than  the  idea  of  the  individ- 
ual. 

The  realism  of  the  Middle  Ages  is 
an  application  of  the  Platonic  idea  of 
solidarity  to  the  contemporary  life. 
The  state  and  the  church  are  the 
great  realities.  The  general  is  the 
real.  The  individual  is  incidental. 
The  Holy  Roman  Empire  is  of  vastly 
more  significance  than  the  citizen. 
The  Holy  Catholic  Church  is  of  vastly 
more  significance  than  the  Christian. 
The  individual  is  crushed  under  the 
weight  of  this  great  totality.  You 
can  never  understand  the  bewildering 

21 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

bravery  of  Luther  until  you  see  it 
against  the  background  of  the  mighty 
power  of  mediaeval  Realism. 

To  be  sure,  Nominalism  made  a 
protest.  The  individual  was  the  real. 
The  general  was  an  abstraction. 
You  cannot  ride  a  horse  in  general. 
You  cannot  milk  a  cow  in  general. 
And  so  all  generalizations  must  be- 
come concrete  before  they  have  prac- 
tical worth.  But  Realism  was  too 
deeply  intrenched  in  the  organized 
life  and  deepest  ideals  of  Europe  to 
surrender  easily.  It  would  take  more 
than  a  brilliant  dialectic  to  remove  it 
from  that  place  among  the  uncon- 
scious assumptions  of  the  human 
mind,  which  are  so  much  more  influ- 
ential than  the  professed  opinions. 
The  sixteenth  century  breathed  the 
spirit  of  Realism  in  this  deeper  sense. 
It  believed  in  solidarity.  It  had  not 
learned  the  meaning  of  individuality. 
The  idea  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire 

22 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

dazzled  men's  imagination.  The  idea 
of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  awed 
men's  hearts.  A  man  naturally  as- 
sumed that  it  was  in  the  church  and 
in  the  state,  participating  in  their 
great  dignity  and  power,  that  he  was 
to  find  himself  and  the  meaning  of  his 
life.  To  assert  yourself  over  against 
the  church  would  be  like  trying  to  live 
without  air.  Life  itself  was  condi- 
tioned by  solidarity.  It  was  in  such 
an  atmosphere  that  Martin  Luther 
grew  up.  And  the  marvel  of  his  lead- 
ership is  that  such  a  man  in  such  an 
environment  did  dare  to  defy  the 
church  and  the  state.  That  act  was 
worth  more  than  a  thousand  philos- 
opher's treatises.  It  proved  that 
whatever  the  philosophic  situation, 
the  practical  truth  was  that  some- 
times the  individual  must  stand  out 
against  solidarity  in  the  name  of  the 
integrity  of  his  personal  life.  And 
philosophy  in  the  long  run  would  be 
23 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

sure  to  follow  the  lead  of  the  deeds 
which  gave  the  individual  a  new  place 
in  the  world. 

The  relation  between  the  individ- 
ual and  the  church,  the  individual 
and  the  state,  was  not  completely 
worked  out  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
but  the  individual  came  to  have  a  new 
meaning  through  the  Reformation. 

The  era  of  Revolution  was  the  time 
when  the  individual  made  supreme 
claims.  The  era  of  reaction  after  the 
Congress  of  Vienna  was  a  time  of 
new  emphasis  on  solidarity.  The 
nineteenth  century  tried  to  find  a  way 
to  unite  the  two  views  in  a  higher 
synthesis.  The  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  is  an  attempt  to  make 
solidarity  and  individuality  do  team 
work.  It  is  at  least  clear  by  this  time 
that  individuality  has  to  meet  one 
checking  power — the  common  good. 
It  is  also  clear  that  solidarity  must 
not  crush  out  that  personal  life  which 
24 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

is  the  basis  of  individual  integrity, 
and  which  must  never  be  lost  from 
the  world.  y 

All  this  is  going  ahead  of  our 
story.  What  we  must  remember  now 
is  that  the  sixteenth  century  dawned 
with  the  individual  lost  to  view  in  the 
emphasis  on  church  and  state.  The 
century  closed  with  the  individual 
firmly  standing  to  claim  his  place  in 
the  life  of  the  world.  And  the  differ- 
ence between  the  beginning  and  the 
end  of  the  century  was  essentially  the 
achievement  of  Martin  Luther. 

There  are  many  fascinating  inci- 
dentals in  the  background  of  the  Re- 
formation. Feudalism,  that  strange 
half-way  house  between  absolute 
monarchy  and  democracy,  had,  on  the 
whole,  left  men  believing  in  a  more 
centralized  state.  The  crusades, 
whose  journey  in  the  name  of  an  ideal 
and  a  dream  had  shaken  Europe  out 
of  provincialism,  had  made  it  ready 
25 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

for  new  ideas  and  citizenship  in  a 
larger  world.  Humanism  as  a  great 
gospel  of  good  taste  had  changed 
many  things.  Where  it  had  noble 
seriousness,  as  in  Germany,  it  was 
one  of  the  forces  which  helped  to 
make  for  a  better  day.  When  it  was 
an  aesthetic  enthusiasm  untempered 
by  ethical  passion,  as  in  Italy,  it  de- 
generated until  it  left  a  trail  of  poison 
in  its  wake.  Commerce,  developing 
everywhere  after  the  crusades,  was 
bringing  an  economic  influence  into 
the  deeper  relations  of  men  in  quite  a 
new  way.  Those  who  regard  the  Re- 
formation as  an  economic  movement 
are  quite  beside  the  mark.  But  those 
who  insist  that  economic  influences 
were  profoundly  significant  in  the 
Reformation  are  declaring  no  more 
than  the  truth.  The  world  of  trade 
reaches,  its  hand  into  every  relation- 
ship, and  in  the  sixteenth  century  you 
can  see  it  clearly  if  you  are  alert  and 
26 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

watchful.  Although  Roger  Bacon 
lived  and  wrote  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, that  going  back  to  nature  which 
is  the  basis  of  modern  science  had  not 
become  a  movement  of  wide  signifi- 
cance in  Luther's  time.  Copernicus 
lived  in  the  sixteenth  century,  but  not 
as  one  who  contributed  to  its  char- 
acteristic life. 

The  fifteenth  century  had  initiated 
the  era  of  a  new  geography.  The 
voyages  of  Columbus  were  the 
achievements  of  a  devout  Catholic. 
But  the  world  of  this  expanded  geog- 
raphy belonged  to  the  world  of  break- 
ing chains.  The  sixteenth  century 
was  a  century  of  great  voyages  and 
discoveries.  While  Luther  was  at 
Worms,  Magellan  was  ofiF  on  his 
great  voyage.  Enlargement  of 
feeling,  enlargement  of  life  itself 
were  characteristic  of  the  age. 

Amid  all  this  variety  and  accumu- 
lation of  interests  and  activities  can 
27 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

we  find  a  few  defining  characteristics 
of  the  world  into  which  Luther  was 
born?  Looking  back  from  our  van- 
tage ground,  it  is  easy  to  see  what 
perhaps  no  one  could  have  declared 
at  the  time.  The  world  was  tiring  of 
forms  and  hungering  for  realities. 
It  would  hear  Luther  because  even 
when  mistaken  he  was  always  real. 
The  world  was  restless  under  the 
weight  of  a  civilization  which  crushed 
the  individual.  It  would  hear  Luther 
because  he  dared  in  the  name  of 
loyalty  to  the  deepest  thing  in  his  own 
life  to  stand  against  emperor  and 
pope.  After  the  gloom  of  ages  which 
had  been  afraid  of  life,  the  world  was 
coming  to  have  a  springtime  sense  of 
flowers  coming  to  bud  and  ready  to 
bloom.  Luther  would  be  heard  be- 
cause he  was  the  very  incarnation  of 
the  spirit  of  spring.  It  was  more 
than  an  accident  that  he  carried  a 
flower  as  he  stepped  forth  to  debate 
28 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

with  Eck.  The  new  vitahty  was  aHve 
in  him.  Organization  was  to  be  less 
powerful  than  life.  And  Luther  saw 
in  organization  the  servant  of  life, 
never  its  master.  The  priestly  was 
to  retire  before  the  prophetic.  And 
Luther  was  a  prophet.  So  the  ages 
met  in  the  age.  So  the  age  met 
Martin  Luther. 

The  relation  between  personal  and 
impersonal  forces  is  clearly  illus- 
trated here.  There  are  plenty  of  im- 
personal forces.  But  taken  all  to- 
gether they  simply  mean  opportunity. 
They  wait  for  the  touch  of  the 
master's  hand.  And  with  that  touch 
the  world  swings  about  into  a  new 
era. 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 


LECTURE  n 

THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF 
THE  REFORMATION 

A  DEVOUT  Roman  Catholic  with 
some  knowledge  of  history  is  likely 
to  think  of  the  thirteenth  as  the  most 
wonderful  of  the  centuries.  In  this 
century  the  papacy  emerged  victori- 
ous from  its  struggle  with  the  Hohen- 
stauf en  emperors.  It  was  the  century 
of  Innocent  III,  who  stood  undazzled 
at  the  apex  of  papal  power.  It  was 
the  century  when  the  church's 
thought  came  to  supreme  expression 
in  the  Sunima  of  Thomas  Aquinas. 
It  was  a  century  of  great  religious 
revival.  Saint  Francis  of  Assisi  like 
a  rare  flower  sheds  fragrance  over 
the  life  of  the  period ;  and  in  this  cen- 
tury the  Dominicans,  as  well  as  the 
30 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

Franciscans,  went  forth  to  do  by 
preaching  a  profounder  thing  than 
could  be  done  by  the  sword.  In 
power,  in  intellect,  and  in  piety  the 
church  has  a  great  story  to  tell  in  this 
century  of  its  attainment  of  the 
heights.  And  in  this  connection  we 
ought  to  say  that,  whatever  its  limi- 
tations, the  Church  of  Rome  has  al- 
ways been  able  to  produce  saints. 
That  authentic  canonization  of  the 
heart  which  needs  no  recognizing  or 
confirming  word  from  pontiff  or 
church  has  taken  place  within  the 
Roman  system  in  every  age.  And 
never  did  it  reveal  itself  in  more 
poignant  attractiveness  than  in  the 
gentle,  gay,  and  winsome  leader  of 
the  Franciscans.  Brother  to  all  men 
and  all  things,  feeling  kinship  with 
sun  and  moon  and  birds  and  all 
people,  self-forgetful  singer  and 
knight  errant  of  a  joyous  religion. 
Saint  Francis  has  won  a  place  never 
31 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

to  be  surrendered  in  the  heart  of  the 
world.  He  had  as  true  and  as  real  a 
Christian  experience  as  did  Martin 
Luther.  But  the  simple-minded  Saint 
Francis  never  realized  the  implica- 
tions of  his  own  experience  in  any 
way  which  raised  problems  as  to  his 
loyalty  to  the  church. 

Now,  the  extraordinary  thing 
about  the  thirteenth  century  is  its  con- 
trast with  the  century  which  follows. 
In  the  thirteenth  century  the  church 
is  supreme.  In  the  fourteenth  it  trails 
in  the  dust.  Two  tragic  series  of 
events  stand  out  in  this  contrast. 
One  is  the  so-called  Babylonian  Cap- 
tivity. From  1309  to  1377  the  popes, 
forsaking  Rome,  lived  at  Avignon 
under  the  power  of  the  king  of 
France.  From  being  a  king  of  kings 
the  pope  descended  to  be  the  puppet 
of  the  French  king.  In  the  new  situ- 
ation he  had  luxury  and  opulence 
enough,  but  his  moral  and  spiritual 
32 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

authority  was  slipping  from  him. 
Then,  as  if  this  deadly  wound  were 
not  enough,  it  was  followed  by  the 
great  schism  where  rival  claimants 
to  the  papal  throne  hurled  anathemas 
at  each  other,  and  the  world  beheld 
the  church  torn  by  inner  dissensions. 
All  this  was  accompanied  by  an 
avarice  and  a  faithlessness  to  every 
standard  of  Christian  conduct  on  the 
part  of  numbers  of  churchly  leaders. 
The  church  claimed  to  be  the  moral 
renewer  of  the  world.  It  became  the 
dark  scandal  of  the  world. 

Of  course  the  transition  had  not 
been  so  sudden  as  it  seemed.  There 
had  been  evil  and  the  seed  of  failure 
in  the  church  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury. There  was  good  in  the  church 
of  the  fourteenth  century.  But  the 
obvious,  startling,  visible  quality  of 
ecclesiastical  life  in  the  fourteenth 
century  expressed  itself  in  subser- 
vience to  the  French  king,  inner  dis- 
33 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

sensions   and   turmoil,    avarice   and 
vice. 

Noble  indignation  and  discontent 
sprang  up  everywhere.  Cries  for  re- 
form were  heard  on  all  sides,  and  the 
fifteenth  century  was  the  century  of 
attempted  ecclesiastical  reform.  The 
cure-all  in  every  mind  was  the  appeal 
from  the  pope  to  the  General  Council. 
One  council  after  another  tried  to  deal 
with  the  problem.  The  Council  of 
Constance  did  heal  the  great  schism. 
But  when  the  century  of  councils 
came  to  an  end  the  church  had  not 
been  reformed.  With  the  failure  of 
attempts  at  reform  from  within,  it 
was  but  a  step  to  the  thought,  revolu- 
tion. In  the  fourteenth  century  Wic- 
lif  had  gone  further  than  the  loyal 
churchly  reformers.  Striking  at  the 
validity  of  the  mass  as  a  magical  rite, 
and  at  the  authority  of  the  pope,  his 
position  required,  not  the  cessation 
of  abuses,  but  the  transformation  of 
34 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

the  very  churchly  organism.  John 
Hus  of  Bohemia,  who  received  his  in- 
spiration from  WicHf,  gave  eloquent 
utterance  to  principles  whose  inevi- 
table end  was  not  reform  but  revolu- 
tion. This  is  the  reason  why  the  Re-\ 
forming  Council  at  Constance  burned  •* 
Hus  in  141 5.  It  was  ready  to  deter- 
mine on  the  cessation  of  abuses.  It 
was  not  ready  for  a  revolution  which 
would  transform  the  very  nature  of 
the  church.  We  must  always  care- 
fully distinguish  between  the  men  who 
wanted  the  church  made  clean  and 
honest  and  free  from  subservience  to 
evil  influences,  yet  all  the  while  re- 
maining the  old  church  of  the  Middle 
Ages  in  theory  and  life,  and  those 
who  believed  that  the  only  hope  was 
in  a  transformation  which  would  go 
to  the  very  root  of  the  church  itself. 
The  conservative  reformers  of  the 
fifteenth  century  found  their  suc- 
cessors in  the  Council  of  Trent  in  the 
35 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

sixteenth.  The  radical  reformers 
found  their  successors  in  the  founders 
of  Protestantism. 

Two  fundamental  questions  were 
involved  in  the  whole  situation.  One 
had  to  do  with  the  very  nature  of  re- 
ligion. The  other  had  to  do  with  the 
seat  of  authority. 

It  is  from  a  study  of  the  first  of 
these  questions  that  we  must  ap- 
proach an  understanding  of  the  Prot- 
estant Reformation.  Later  the  sec- 
ond question  too  emerges  and  be- 
comes a  matter  which  is  of  very  far- 
reaching  significance. 
'  The  whole  sacramental  theory  of 
religion  tended  to  make  religion  a 
matter  of  magic  rather  than  a  matter 
of  personal  ethical  and  spiritual  rela- 
tionships. The  belief  in  the  transub- 
stantiation  of  the  elements  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  into  the  very  body  and 
blood  of  Christ,  at  the  word  of  the 
officiating  priest,  built  worship  about 
36 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

a  perpetually  repeated  miracle,  only 
performed  through  the  instrumental- 
ity of  an  ordained  priest,  to  whom  the 
church  had  given  this  ghostly  and 
august  authority.  Participation  in 
this  miraculously  mediated  grace 
could  only  come  through  the  organ- 
ized church,  and  the  miracle  of  the 
mass  did  not  depend  upon  the  char- 
acter of  the  priest,  but  only  upon  his 
actual  possession  of  the  authority  and 
power  given  through  ordination  and 
organic  connection  with  the  church. 
The  whole  theory  of  mediaeval  wor- 
ship had  these  magical  elements,  but 
it  all  came  to  a  visible  climax  in  the 
theory  of  the  mass.  The  priest  stood  ^ 
between  a  man  and  God.  Ceremonial 
became  a  matter  of  the  highest  im- 
portance. Emphasis  on  character 
was  buried  beneath  a  hundred  bril- 
liant and  appealing  ecclesiastical 
forms.  The  church  offered  peace 
through  rite  and  ritual  rather  than 
37 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

peace  through  personal  contact  with 
the  Hving  God. 

With  all  these  there  was  the  ascetic 
theory  of  self-immolation  and  the 
emphasis  on  endless  rounds  of  effort 
in  the  performance  of  duty  with  the 
earning  of  a  deeper  peace  as  the  end 
of  the  effort.  The  saint  of  the  mon- 
astery was  an  ascetic.  The  comfort- 
able Christian  on  the  street  was  a 
man  who  partook  of  the  sacraments. 
Now,  it  is  important  to  remember  that 
through  ritual  and  asceticism  many 
men  did  break  their  way  to  God. 
Many  a  man  was  an  evangelical  at 
heart  whose  thinking  never  became 
consistently  evangelical.  Anselm  in 
the  eleventh  century,  and  Bernard  of 
Clairvaux  in  the  twelfth,  illustrate 
the  possibility  of  winging  a  lofty  spir- 
itual flight  without  breaking  with  the 
church  or  being  conscious  of  inner 
contradictions.  And  doubtless  many 
common  men  and  women  quite  simply 
38 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

found  their  way  into  the  presence 
of  the  living  God  without  being 
thwarted  by  the  forms  which  the 
church  offered  them.  The  heart  out- 
ran the  head,  and  they  found  the  God 
beyond  the  ritual.  But  multitudes 
took  the  form  as  a  substitute  for  the 
reality,  and  to  many  religion  became 
a  matter  of  exciting  magic  rather 
than  a  fellowship  with  God  issuing 
in  a  new  life.  The  church  needed  to  ^ 
cast  off  a  vast  amount  of  revered  rub- 
bish if  it  was  to  become  a  real  aid  to 
the  seeker  after  God.  Magic  is  de- 
generate religion.  Asceticism  is 
hectic  morality — and  both  weighed 
heavily  upon  the  church. 

The  appeal  must  be  to  a  triumphant 
evangelical  experience  which  would 
fully  realize  its  own  implications. 
Christianity  must  be  rediscovered  by 
a  man  who  would  freshly  see  and  loy- 
ally follow  all  that  the  discovery 
meant  for  himself  and  the  world. 
39 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

This  man  was  Martin  Luther. 
This  rugged,  human  marvel  of  a  man, 
Hke  Abraham  Lincoln,  was  a  man  of 
the  people.  His  father  was  a  peas- 
ant. His  grandfather  was  a  peasant. 
His  voice  always  smacked  of  the  soil, 
and  sometimes  his  personality  reeked 
with  the  less  lovely  but  very  neces- 
sary activities  of  the  barnyard.  He 
was  the  jolliest  of  the  world's  great 
prophets,  a  jest  always  upon  his  lips, 
a  quip  always  upon  his  tongue.  Here 
too  he  resembled  Lincoln — the  sad- 
dest jester  the  world  has  ever  known. 
Life  swept  through  his  personality  in 
blasts  of  fresh  energetic  air.  His 
words  were  hot  with  feeling,  and 
dripped  with  human  understanding 
and  sympathy.  Sometimes  he  seemed 
less  like  a  man  than  a  volcano  in  erup- 
tion. Life  pulled  at  him,  fought  him, 
tore  him,  allured  him,  baffled  him. 
He  was  a  professor  who  never  lost 
the  edge  of  a  cutting  practical  mind. 
40 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

He  was  a  preacher  who  knew  the 
push  and  the  pull  of  every  temptation 
which  sapped  men's  higher  alle- 
giance. He  was  a  poet  at  heart  with 
a  singing  lilt  to  his  life.  But  solid 
feet  were  heavy  in  the  soil  as  his  lyric 
words  took  wings  and  moved  sky- 
ward. He  had  a  mind  of  disconcert- 
ing honesty,  a  clearness  of  thought 
which  amazed  less  candid  and  ad- 
venturous thinkers.  And  he  always 
had  a  word  or  a  phrase  with  an  ad- 
hesive power  which  fastened  its  mes- 
sage in  men's  minds.  A  right  glori- 
ous, dangerous,  potential  sort  of  a 
man  was  Luther  in  endowment  and 
quality.  Such  a  man  is  sure  to  do 
tremendous  work  for  God  or  the  devil. 
In  the  beginning  you  cannot  tell 
which. 

Luther  was  born  in  1483  in  a  world 

soon  to  wonder  over  the  discoveries 

of  Columbus.     His  father,   shrewd, 

practical,  and  able  in  his  own  way, 

41 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

had  aspirations  for  his  lively  and 
promising  son.  Through  a  hard  and 
difficult  boyhood  Luther  moved  with 
the  goal  of  knowledge  kept  in  his 
mind.  He  went  the  way  of  the  poor 
and  ambitious  scholar,  and  his 
father's  desire  that  he  should  be  a 
lawyer  seemed  about  to  be  realized. 
Then  something  happened.  It  had 
been  a  good  while  getting  ready  to 
happen.  Suddenly  the  gay  and  lively 
young  student  vanished  from  the 
world  into  an  Augustinian  monas- 
tery. After  all,  it  was  not  the  laws  of 
men  concerning  which  he  was  think- 
ing. It  was  the  law  of  God  which 
bent  him  broken  and  fearful  to  the 
earth. 

With  the  fierce  impetuosity  of  his 
intense  nature  Luther  set  about  mak- 
ing friends  with  the  Almighty.  He 
tried  the  way  of  asceticism.  He  did 
endless  things  to  win  the  favor  of 
God.  He  fasted  until  he  fainted. 
42 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

He  went  the  full  length  of  self-casti- 
gation  and  abstinence  and  lowly  serv- 
ice. He  became  the  marvel  of  the 
monastery.  Men  regarded  him  as  a 
saint.  All  the  while  his  own  heart 
was  eaten  up  by  a  gnawing  unrest. 
He  would  not  deceive  himself.  And 
he  knew  that  he  had  not  found  the 
way. 

Rites  and  ceremonies  did  not  sat- 
isfy. The  most  abandoned  self-sacri- 
fice did  not  bring  him  content.  He 
did  everything  the  church  suggested. 
He  tried  every  method  Ithe  church 
offered — and  his  empty  heart  told 
him  plainly  enough  that  God  had  not 
entered. 

But  right  in  his  order  there  were 
men  who  knew  something  of  a  better 
way.  A  word  here  and  there,  a 
friendly  understanding  on  the  part  of 
his  superior  Staupitz,  a  dawning 
sense  of  the  Bible  as  having  an  un- 
mediated  message  for  his  own  soul — 
43 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

all  these  things  were  portents  of  the 
dawn  of  a  new  day  for  Luther.  Off 
to  Rome  he  carried  a  mediaeval  mind 
in  preconceptions,  but  a  shrewd  eye 
which  later  remembered  many  a  dis- 
illusioning experience.  And  all  the 
while  his  spirit,  chafing  like  an  angry, 
spirited  steed,  was  sensing  the  near- 
ness of  the  freedom  he  had  never 
known. 

It  was  no  new  experience  which  re- 
made the  world  for  Martin  Luther. 
The  apostle  Paul  had  traveled  the 
same  way  centuries  before.  Many 
other  feet  had  walked  that  highway. 
And  now  at  last  Luther  broke  his 
way  through  the  undergrowths  and 
came  out  upon  the  open  road.  Reli- 
gion was  personal  trust  in  a  mighty 
Saviour.  This  was  the  truth  which 
blazed  like  a  new  sun  in  Luther's  sky. 
He  had  been  trying  to  earn  peace. 
Now  he  knew  that  peace  is  God's  gift. 
He  had  been  trying  to  find  power  in 
44 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

the  church's  rites.  Now  he  knew  that 
the  day  of  power  is  the  day  when  the 
living  Christ  enters  your  own  soul. 
He  had  been  trying  to  build  his  life 
about  a  purpose.  Now  he  knew  that 
it  was  to  be  built  about  a  Saviour. 
It  was  not  merely  that  he  said  these 
things.  It  was  not  merely  that  he  felt 
the  appeal  of  these  things.  Weary 
and  torn  and  despairing,  he  flung 
himself  with  an  abandon  of  trust  into 
the  great  strength  of  Christ.  And  he 
found  himself  held  in  arms  of  Infinite 
loving  protection  and  power.  He 
was  shaken  from  the  center  of  his 
being.  Old  things  passed  away.  All 
things  became  new.  It  was  spring- 
time everywhere,  with  flowers  bloom- 
ing and  birds  singing  and  God  smil- 
ing. When  Luther  declared  that  if 
anybody  should  knock  at  the  door  of 
his  heart  and  say  "Who  dwells 
there?''  he  would  not  reply,  "Martin 
Luther  dwells  here,"  but  he  would 
45 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

say,  "J^sus  Christ  dwells  here,"  he 
was  simply  saying  in  glad  and  honest 
fashion  what  he  felt  had  taken  place 
in  his  own  soul. 

Such  an  experience  in  such  a  man 
was  sure  to  have  explosive  power. 
Luther  moved  quietly,  however.  He 
had  a  cautious,  conservative  mind 
united  with  a  radical  temperament, 
and  "he  was  quite  content  with  appro- 
priating to  the  full  his  new  and 
wonderful  experience  and  sharing  it 
with  others.  So  we  find  him  going 
about  his  duties  at  the  new  University 
of  Wittenberg  quite  unconscious  of 
the  storm  which  is  soon  to  break 
about  his  head. 

Then,  in  15 17,  comes  Tetzel  with 
his  trafficking  in  indulgences.  Saint 
Peter's  is  to  be  built,  Albert  of  May- 
ence  is  to  have  his  funds  replenished, 
and  the  selling  of  spiritual  privileges 
goes  on  apace.  The  wily  and  effec- 
tive dealer  in  ghostly  values  cannot 
46 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

enter  the  territory  in  which  Luther 
lives,  but  he  comes  near  enough  to  at- 
tract excited  men  and  women  for 
whose  spiritual  welfare  Luther  feels 
responsible.  The  quick  effect  of  the 
money  dropping  in  the  box  greatly 
appeals  to  them,  and  Luther  beholds 
those  whom  he  had  watched  as  they 
began  to  realize  the  glorious  meaning 
of  religion  slipping  into  disintegrat- 
ing and  superstitious  thoughts  and 
ways.  It  is  religion  itself  which  is 
at  stake.  Luther  always  had  the 
heart  of  a  pastor,  and  as  a  pastor  he 
cannot  watch  unmoved  the  undoing 
of  his  deepest  work. 

Even  now  he  moves  with  caution, 
and  when,  on  a  day  in  October,  he 
posts  ninety-five  theses  on  the  door  of 
the  church  at  Wittenberg  for  aca- 
demic discussion,  he  does  not  feel  the 
earth  trembling  beneath  his  feet.  But 
the  questions  he  raises  are  questions 
for  which  Germany  is  waiting.  They 
47 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

are  questions  for  which  the  world  is 
waiting.  They  are  translated  into  the 
vernacular.  Like  wildfire  they  go 
here  and  there  and  everywhere,  and 
so  the  fight  is  on. 

Luther  has  no  thought  of  being  dis- 
loyal to  the  church.  The  pope  will 
stand  with  him  when  once  the  matter 
gets  to  Rome.  The  church  dare  not 
sacrifice  the  very  essentials  of  true 
Christian  piety.  But  passing  days 
are  full  of  disillusionment.  His  own 
thought  clarifies.  In  the  disputation 
with  Eck  he  admits  principles  which 
would  dethrone  the  papacy.  For  now 
the  second  fundamental  question  of 
which  we  have  spoken  arrives.  What 
is  the  seat  of  authority?  What  if  the 
pope  decides  against  him?  What  if 
a  general  council  decides  against 
him?  And,  facing  the  awful  di- 
lemma, Luther  finds  that  he  is  ready 
to  stand  by  his  Christian  experience 
against  pope,  against  council,  against 
48 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

all  the  world.     He  has  found  some- 
thing which  is  sure  whatever  fails. 

Now,  the  central  meaning  of  the 
Reformation  fully  emerges.  Religion 
is  a  matter  of  vital  faith  in  the  liv- 
ing Saviour,  and  that  faith  authenti- 
cates itself  against  every  opposition 
from  ecclesiastical  or  secular  power. 
One  must  be  loyal  to  the  experience  to 
which  faith  leads  though  the  heavens 
fall.  The  luminous  understanding  of 
his  own  position  is  expressed  with 
marvelous  power  by  Luther  in  1520 
in  those  famous  treatises,  The  Ad- 
dress to  the  Christian  Nobility,  On 
the  Babylonian  Captivity  of  the 
Church,  and  The  Freedom  of  the 
Christian  Man. 

Other  men  have  other  motives,  but 
Luther  has  found  a  new  and  tri- 
umphant life  in  Christ,  and  all  his 
efforts  during  the  following  years 
are  for  the  purpose  of  making  room 
for  that  sort  of  life  in  the  world. 
49 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

If  the  pope  had  been  astute  enough 
to  avoid  a  break  with  Luther  while 
yet  allowing  him  full  freedom  to 
preach  his  glowing  gospel,  it  is  prob- 
able that  Luther  might  never  have 
realized  the  implications  of  his  own 
position.  In  that  event  he  would  have 
died  a  loyal  son  of  the  church,  and  his 
movement  would  have  been  another 
revival  within  the  church  like  that  of 
Saint  Francis  of  Assisi. 

It  is  fortunate  that  the  church  did 
not  compromise.  The  day  had  come 
for  a  type  of  Christian  life  free  from 
the  chains  of  medisevalism,  and 
Luther  was  the  man  to  be  its  leader. 
He  was  forced  to  the  place  where  he 
saw  that  the  logic  of  his  position 
meant  the  turning  from  the  magical 
theory  of  the  Eucharist  and  repudi- 
ating the  authority  of  the  pope.  Then, 
indeed,  the  clearing  was  made  for  the 
building  of  the  new  house. 

The  Reformation  was  entangled 
SO 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

with  many  motives  which  were  not 
religious,  but  to  Luther  the  guiding 
star  was  always  religion.  And  you 
always  find  the  basis  of  his  decisions 
in  a  religious  motive. 

The  relation  between  the  Reforma- 
tion and  humanism  illustrates  this  im- 
portant matter.  Erasmus  was  the 
prince  of  humanists.  No  other  man 
of  letters,  with  the  possible  exception 
of  Voltaire,  has  ever  had  such  a  fol- 
lowing. A  man  of  infinite  gifts, 
of  brilliant  mentality  and  incisive, 
ironic  speech;  a  scholar,  a  writer,  a 
half-cynical,  superior  observer  of  men 
and  movements,  Erasmus  is  the  very 
incarnation  of  the  detached,  academic 
mind.  He  is  inclined  to  substitute 
words  for  deeds,  and  he  is  inclined  to 
think  that  when  he  has  said  a  thing 
he  has  done  it.  Erasmus  was  a  firm 
believer  in  reform.  He  believed  that 
men  of  letters  with  the  cutting  power 
of  their  epigrams  and  the  gay,  caustic 
51 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

raillery  of  their  sarcasm,  could  laugh 
the  world  out  of  many  of  its  evils  and 
guide  it  into  better  ways.  His  mind 
was  so  poised  and  balanced  that  he 
could  never  be  a  whole-hearted  advo- 
cate. He  always  saw  so  much  to  say 
for  the  other  side.  Erasmus  ren- 
dered vast  services.  His  Praise  of 
Folly  was  indeed  a  weapon.  His  New- 
Testament  had  a  vital  place  in  the  Re- 
formation. But  this  apostle  of  learn- 
ing and  the  dignified  leadership  of 
cool,  intellectual  life  in  the  very  nature 
of  things  could  not  understand  Lu- 
ther. They  despised  many  of  the 
same  things.  They  loved  many  of 
the  same  things.  Erasmus  did  more 
by  means  of  his  powerful  influence  to 
protect  Luther  than  is  generally  real- 
ized. But  the  singing  glory  of  the 
new  life  whose  raptures  remade  the 
world  was  something  quite  foreign  to 
Erasmus.  His  soul  had  never  been 
torn  and  shaken;  his  life  had  never 
52 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

been  lifted  to  sudden  glory.  He  was  a 
devout  and  earnest  reformer.  He  was 
a  stranger  to  the  defining  evangelical 
experiences  of  the  Reformation. 

Luther  was  ready  to  train  with 
Erasmus  and  the  humanists  un- 
til it  became  evident  that,  in  spite  of 
all  they  had  in  common,  the  one  thing 
which  was  greatest  to  him  was  a 
thing  in  which  they  did  not  share.  It 
is  unfortunate  that  the  break  was  so 
cruel. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  humanism 
was  not  kept  nearer  to  the  evangel- 
ical spirit.  But  at  least  we  must 
recognize  that  Luther  was  true  to  his 
own  deepest  life  and  his  sense  of  his 
mission  when  he  made  his  decision  in 
the  light  of  an  evangelical  experience 
rather  than  of  an  enlightened  human- 
ism. 

Luther's  relations  to  knights  and 
princes  and  peasants  and  to  other  re- 
formers are  always  to  be  examined  in 
53 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

the  light  of  this  same  guiding  prin- 
ciple. He  allied  himself  with  what- 
ever he  felt  would  help  the  cause  of 
the  religious  life  which  had  wrought 
a  revolution  in  his  own  soul  and 
which  he  believed  would  work  that 
same  transformation  in  men  every- 
where. He  opposed  whatever  he  felt 
would  endanger  the  Reformation  type 
of  religious  life. 

His  hostility  to  Zwingli  must  be 
judged  from  this  point  of  view. 
Zwingli  was  a  man  of  splendidly  zest- 
ful  earnestness,  of  reforming  enthusi- 
asm, of  clear  and  cogent  thought,  and 
of  powerful  capacity  for  leadership. 
He  proudly  claimed  that  he  was  not 
dependent  upon  Luther.  The  re- 
formation had  mastered  his  head,  it 
had  mastered  his  working  conscience, 
but  it  had  never  swept  his  soul  with 
cataclysmic  energies  which  renewed 
all  the  sources  of  power  in  his  life. 
Luther  instinctively  felt  this.  Formal 
54 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

correctness  of  thinking  was  never 
so  important  as  vital  adequacy  to 
Luther.  The  very  quahties  of  clear, 
lucid  exposition  which  characterized 
Zwingli  aroused  Luther's  distrust  be- 
cause they  were  unaccompanied  by 
what  a  later  age  would  call  the  evan- 
gelical note.  Zwingli's  attitude 
toward  the  Eucharist  seemed  to 
Luther  an  aspect  of  a  superficial  re- 
lation to  all  the  deepest  things  of 
Christian  experience.  Luther  was 
unjust  to  Zwingli.  The  results  were 
deplorable.  But  at  least  we  can  see 
that  with  splendid,  dogged  loyalty 
Luther  was  being  faithful  to  the  one 
great  central  matter  on  which  he  be- 
lieved everything  else  depended. 

There  are  many  interesting  and 
significant  aspects  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, but  the  defining  matter  is  a  new 
life  which  renewed  men  from  within 
and  changed  all  their  relations  to  God 
and  to  the  world. 

55 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 


LECTURE  III 

THE  POLITICAL  ASPECTS  OF 
THE  REFORMATION 

The  outstanding  ideal  of  the 
Middle  Ages  was  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire.  It  was  an  ideal  rather  than 
a  fact.  But  it  was  a  very  significant 
ideal,  and  Voltaire's  clever  saying, 
that  it  was  neither  holy,  Roman,  nor 
an  empire,  must  not  prevent  our  see- 
ing how  profoundly  it  influenced 
mediaeval  life.  The  crowning  of 
Charlemagne  by  the  pope  in  A.  D. 
800,  successor  to  the  old  Roman 
emperors  by  the  authority  of  the 
church,  brought  the  thought  of  far- 
flung  political  solidarity  once  more 
clearly  into  the  mind  of  Europe.  And 
although  Charlemagne  was  always 
master  of  the  pope,  the  idea  now  got 
56 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

into  the  mind  of  men  in  quite  a  new 
way  that  the  church  was  a  source  of 
poHtical  power.  With  the  Othos  in 
the  tenth  century  began  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire  in  Germany,  and  now 
the  power  and  quahty  of  the  poHtical 
life  of  the  Middle  Ages  began  clearly 
to  take  its  final  aspect.  The  theory 
was  easy  to  grasp.  Christendom  was 
one  world.  The  emperor  was  its  \ 
secular  head.  The  pope  was  its  reli-  ^ 
gious  head.  It  was  inevitable  that 
there  would  be  a  clash  between  the 
two  authorities.  A  strong  pope 
would  set  about  mastering  the  em- 
peror. A  strong  emperor  set  about 
mastering  the  pope.  The  dramatic 
episode  of  Gregory  VII  and  Henry 
IV  at  Canossa  in  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury, the  struggle  between  Frederick 
Barbarossa  and  the  papacy  in  the 
twelfth  century,  and  the  conflict  be- 
tween Frederick  II  and  popes  of  the 
thirteenth  century  are  all  aspects  of 
57 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

this  battle  which  was  prolonged 
through  centuries.  When  at  last  the 
Hohenstaufen  emperors  had  been 
conquered  by  the  papacy,  not  only  had 
papal  power  received  a  very  marvel- 
ous expression  but  papal  theory  with 
its  soaring  consciousness  of  imperial 
authority  had  entered  deeply  into  the 
mind  of  Europe. 

In  the  meantime  something  else 
was  in  the  process  of  happening 
whose  influence  was  to  be  of  the  most 
far-reaching  character.  This  was  the 
rise  of  the  nations.  Feudalism  had 
/  given  some  sort  of  order  to  Europe, 
but  except  in  the  case  of  the  feudal 
system  put  into  practice  by  William 
the  Conqueror  in  England,  it  tended 
away  from  centralization  rather  than 
toward  it.  If  nationality  was  to  be- 
come a  fact,  the  feudal  lords  must  be 
made  subservient  to  a  central  national 
authority.  Such  a  movement  was  in 
the  interest  of  the  people,  for  a  steady 
58 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

dependable  national  government  was 
infinitely  preferable  to  the  disorder 
which  was  a  necessary  by-product  of 
feudalism.  We  see  the  movement 
most  distinctly  in  France.  Step  by 
step  the  king  increases  in  power  until 
the  government  is  built  about  his 
authority  and  the  feudal  lords  are 
changed  into  flattering  courtiers. 
This  full  consummation  is  seen  in  the 
seventeenth  century  in  the  reign  of 
Louis  XIV.  But  even  as  early  as  the 
fourteenth  century  the  French  king 
had  become  powerful  enough  to  take 
the  pope  under  his  control.  So  in  the 
papal  captivity  at  Avignon  you  see 
the  international  pope  quite  under  the 
dominance  of  the  French  monarchy. 
Nationality  has  emerged  in  the  life 
of  Europe  with  tremendous  power. 
England  too,  with  its  insular  geo- 
graphical position  and  its  sharply 
self-conscious  life,  is  all  the  while 
growing  in  truly  national  quality. 
59 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

The  days  of  supreme  royal  power 
came  with  the  Tudors  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  but  a  genuine  nationality 
came  before  the  Tudors.  In  the 
.  latter  part  of  the  fifteenth  century  the 
^  last  of  the  Mohammedans  were  ex- 
pelled from  Spain,  and  with  the  mar- 
riage of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  the 
foundation  was  laid  for  a  truly  na- 
tional life  in  that  country.  In  Italy 
the  national  movement  did  not  come 
to  fruition  until  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. Papal  power  and  imperial  am- 
bition for  long  made  such  a  consum- 
mation impossible.  In  Germany  the 
emperor  was  so  busy  fighting  the  pope 
and  trying  to  get  a  hold  on  Italy  that 
he  quite  failed  to  centralize  German 
life.  Even  as  late  as  the  accession  of 
Napoleon  to  power  in  1800  there  were 
about  three  hundred  separate  states 
in  Germany.  At  the  end  of  Napo- 
leon's career  there  were  upward  of 
forty  German  states,  and  it  was  not 
60 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

until  after  1870-71  that  actual  unifi- 
cation came  to  Germany  under  the 
presiding  genius  of  Bismarck.  In 
fact,  if  one  understands  that  by  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
France  was  suffering  from  too  much 
centralization  and  Germany  was  fac- 
ing the  tragedy  of  too  little  central- 
ization, he  will  have  a  key  to  much  of 
significance  in  later  European  life. 

The  Reformation  period  found 
France,  England,  and  Spain  fully 
alive  as  national  powers.  Italy  and 
Germany  were  still  in  bits.  The 
dream  of  the  empire  threw  its  glam- 
our over  men's  minds,  but  nationality 
had  become  a  very  real  fact.  All  this 
time  the  papacy  was  living  in  a  realm 
of  exalted  claims.  And  it  was  drain- 
ing the  world's  purse  by  endless  finan- 
cial exactions.  In  fact,  the  whole  na- 
tional idea  was  endangered  by  papal 
interferences  and  taxation.  This  was 
felt  particularly  by  England  and  Ger- 
61 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

many.  The  support  of  Wiclif  as  early 
as  the  fourteenth  century  was  in  no 
small  measure  a  matter  of  natural 
national  policy  in  respect  of  a  man 
who  was  opposing  a  foreign  menace. 
Germany  felt  the  tug  of  the  papacy  at 
its  purse  strings.  And  the  feeling 
that  the  religious  sovereign  in  Italy 
was  coolly  and  remorselessly  bleeding 
Germany  was  a  genuine  force  in  se- 
curing support  for  Luther  on  the  part 
of  the  German  princes. 

The  play  of  complicated  political 
forces  was  all  about  and  in  and 
through  the  Reformation.  Charles 
V,  who  ruled  over  more  territory 
than  any  man  following  Charle- 
magne, was  born  in  1500.  The 
wealth  poured  into  Spain  from 
America  was  part  of  his  capital.  He 
was  a  cold,  able  politician.  He  held 
a  clever  hand  and  played  the  political 
game  with  energy  and  skill.  If  he 
had  any  enthusiasm  in  his  still,  un- 
62 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

kindled  way,  it  was  a  loyalty  for  the 
old  church.  He  was  a  conservative 
by  instinct,  and  while  he  believed  in 
the  necessity  of  ecclesiastical  reform, 
he  hated  the  very  thought  of  ecclesi- 
astical revolution.  Charles  V  and 
Francis  I  of  France  were  rival  can- 
didates for  the  imperial  throne.  Both 
were  Catholics.  Francis  I  was  a  fine 
later  Renaissance  gentleman  to  whom 
humanitarianism  was  more  vital  than 
Catholicism,  but  a  man  essentially  to 
be  ranked  with  the  Catholic  forces  of 
the  century.  Charles  V  emerged  tri- 
umphant in  the  early  rivalry  and  was 
elected  emperor.  The  later  rivalries 
and  wars  between  Charles  V  and 
Francis  I  in  the  most  extraordinary 
way  gave  the  Protestant  movement 
time  to  grow.  Just  when  Charles 
was  ready  to  set  about  crushing  the 
Protestants  he  was  likely  to  find  him- 
self caught  in  the  toils  of  a  new  war 
with  Francis.  And  all  the  while  the 
63 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

Protestant  infant  was  hurrying  along 
toward  a  lusty  manhood,  when  it 
would  be  impossible  to  crush  him. 
The  papal  throne  too  was  watching 
with  suspicion  and  anxiety  the  power 
of  Charles.  It  was  no  part  of  the 
papal  plan  to  have  too  strong  a  Cath- 
olic emperor  or  too  strong  a  French 
Catholic  king.  The  days  of  deadly 
battle  with  great  emperors  had  not 
been  forgotten,  and  the  days  at  Avi- 
gnon had  not  passed  out  of  mind.  So 
while  in  mutual  suspicion  the  Catholic 
powers  continued  their  jealous  and 
self-protecting  activities,  the  follow- 
ers of  Luther  were  becoming  a  host. 
The  political  situation  was  not  the 
source  of  the  Lutheran  movement, 
but  it  did  give  the  movement  breath- 
ing room  and  living  room  and  time  to 
become  strong.  When  other  things 
were  out  of  the  way  and  the  day  of 
conflict  seemed  to  have  arrived,  an- 
other power  held  the  hand  of  Charles 
64 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

V.  This  time  it  was  the  Turks. 
While  Europe  with  shuddering 
anxiety  was  meeting  the  Turkish 
menace  an  internal  conflict  between 
Catholics  and  Protestants  was  impos- 
sible. So  the  Protestant  movement 
continued  to  grow.  All  this  was  not 
the  result  of  astute  political  manipu- 
lation on  the  part  of  the  Protestant 
leaders.  They  reaped  the  benefit,  but 
it  was  none  of  their  planning.  In 
fact,  if  the  reformers  saw  any  hand 
in  this  bending  of  human  jealousies 
and  the  turbulent  movement  of  war- 
like nations  to  the  protection  of  Pro- 
testantism during  its  days  of  weak- 
ness, itjwas  the  hand  of  God. 

Nowhere  does  the  political  element 
in  the  Reformation  seem  to  loom 
larger  than  in  England.  Henry  VIII 
came  to  the  throne  in  15C9,  a  hand- 
some, able,  humanistically  inclined 
king,  to  whom  men  of  learning  looked 
with  enthusiastic  appreciation  and 
6s 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

hope.  If  Henry  VIII  had  not  been 
infinitely  restless  as  the  husband  of 
Catherine,  the  aunt  of  Charles  V,  and 
if  he  had  not  been  captured  by  the 
charms  of  a  beautiful  young  woman 
at  the  court,  the  formal  history  of  the 
Reformation  in  England  would  have 
been  different.  But  the  English  Re- 
formation is  not  for  a  moment  to  be 
thought  of  as  synonymous  with 
Henry  VIII's  spectacular  endeavor  to 
get  a  divorce  from  Catherine.  It  was 
as  a  movement  of  the  English  people, 
and  not  as  a  method  of  the  English 
king,  that  the  Reformation  won  the 
land.  The  deep  meaning  of  the  move- 
ment must  be  seen  apart  from  its 
political  entanglements  in  England, 
even  as  in  Germany. 

In  studying  the  political  aspects  of 
the  Reformation  we  must  look  into  its 
significance  for  the  future  as  well  as 
its  contemporary  environment;  we 
must  see  the  fashion  in  which  the 
66 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

spirit  of  the  Reformation  had  polit- 
ical implications  of  the  most  far- 
reaching  character. 

Altogether  the  appearance  of 
Luther  at  the  Diet  of  Worms  in  1521 
is  one  of  the  few  outstanding  poten- 
tial events  of  history.  The  newly 
crowned  young  emperor  Charles,  now 
about  twenty-one  years  of  age,  was 
holding  an  assembly  of  the  most 
august  and  imposing  dignity.  The 
highest  claims  to  lordship  and  the 
most  revered  and  lofty  political  au- 
thority— all  the  dream  of  Christen- 
dom organized  about  one  great 
leader,  which  had  been  handed  down, 
made  golden  by  the  imagination  of 
the  Middle  Ages — centered  in  the 
emperor,  the  electors,  and  the  princes 
and  nobles  who  gathered  about  him. 
And  Europe's  supreme  religious  force 
was  amply  represented  by  the  papal 
Nuncio  and  a  glittering  group  of 
powerful  ecclesiastics.  The  power 
67 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

and  the  splendor  and  the  organized 
strength  of  the  civiHzed  world  seemed 
visibly  set  forth  in  that  brilliant  as- 
sembly which  met  to  greet  the  young 
emperor.  To  this  stately  and  splendid 
gathering  the  monk  of  Wittenberg 
was  summoned.  He  was  a  peasant. 
He  was  the  son  of  a  peasant.  He  was 
the  grandson  of  a  peasant.  What- 
ever distinction  had  come  to  him  had 
been  achieved  in  ecclesiastical  insti- 
tutions, .and  his  whole  life  was  inter- 
woven with  that  churchly  and  polit- 
ical articulation  of  the  interests  of 
the  world  of  which  the  Diet  of  Worms 
was  so  impressive  an  expression. 
The  church  was  the  air  he  breathed. 
The  empire  was  the  earth  on  which 
he  walked.  To  oppose  them  seemed 
like  trying  to  fight  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  the  universe.  The  question 
was  more  than  a  question  of  right. 
It  was  a  question  of  possibility. 
Could  any  human  being  born  and 
68 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

trained  in  the  mediaeval  life,  with  the 
mediaeval  sanctions  warp  and  woof 
of  his  life,  with  every  memory  and  ex- 
perience of  life  bound  up  with  these 
things,  tear  himself  away  from  them  ? 
Could  any  lone  man  bear  the  crushing 
weight  of  such  a  declaration  of  inde- 
pendence ?  Would  not  the  very  brain 
of  a  man  who  was  staggering  under 
the  awful  pressure  break  apart  under 
the  shattering  load  of  it?  When 
state  and  church  and  organized  life 
were  against  him  could  one  man  stand 
alone  ? 

Luther  did  it.  This  sturdy  peas- 
ant prophet,  Atlas-like,  lifted  the 
weight  of  the  world's  hostility,  and 
neither  mind  nor  body  broke  under 
the  strain.  Probably  no  modern  man 
can  understand  the  tragic  glory  of 
that  hour.  All  the  glittering  pageant 
of  the  empire,  all  the  ghostly  author- 
ity of  the  mighty  church,  all  the  steel 
strength  of  the  emperor's  purpose 
69 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

were  pressed  upon  this  man  of  the 
common  Hfe.  And  in  sheer  vital  tri- 
umphant personal  power  he  defied 
them  all.  It  was  the  supreme  expres- 
sion, the  right  and  power  of  the  indi- 
vidual, which  made  the  hinges  turn 
from  the  mediaeval  to  the  modern 
world.  It  was  the  birth  hour  of  De- 
mocracy. 

For  democracy  begins  not  with  a 
theory  but  with  a  practice.  This 
lonely  man,  standing  out  against  the 
pressure  of  civilization,  gave  a  new 
definition  of  the  rights  and  powers  of 
the  individual  man  and  the  man  out 
of  the  common  life.  Luther  was  not 
thinking  of  Democracy.  He  was  do- 
ing a  much  profounder  thing.  He 
was  illustrating  democracy. 

In  all  ages  lowly  men  have  wanted 
to  stand  up  against  tyrannical  author- 
ity. But  age  after  age  has  been  char- 
acterized by  an  atmosphere  of  hope- 
lessness. There  has  been  the  lethargy 
70 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

of  despair.  What  Luther  did  put  new 
heart  in  the  common  man.  It  put 
new  belief  in  the  individual  into  the 
world's  thought.  It  put  a  new  sense 
of  the  power  of  the  individual  into 
the  world's  life.  Men  saw  that  they 
did  not  need  to  be  lost  in  institutions. 
Men  saw  that  they  did  not  need  to  be 

!,  overwhelmed  by   the   big  organized 
powers  of  the  world.    One  Atlas  pro- 
'duced  a  situation  where  it  became 
possible  to  believe  that  a  man  can  take 
the  world  on  his  back.     That  a  man 
can,  that  a  man  ought,  that  a  man 
must  be  loyal  to  the  deepest  integrity 
\  of  his  own  personal  life  became  part 
[  of  the  common  moral  consciousness 
'  of  the  world.     And  that  conception 
.  with  its  corollaries  gives  us  the  very 
)  genius  of  democracy. 

The  details  of  the  Diet  at  Worms 
in  relation  to  Luther  are  of  fascinat- 
ing interest.     The  multitude  in  the 
city  with  their  alert  and  eager  inter- 
71 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

est;  the  German  princes,  some  with 
their  faces  toward  Rome,  some  with 
their  faces  toward  a  new  Germany; 
the  ecclesiastics  thinking  in  the  terms 
of  that  ancient  papal  authority  which 
was  the  supreme  thing  in  the  world 
to  them;  the  young  emperor,  with 
that  cool  maturity  and  unhesitating 
quiet  strength  and  shrewdness  which 
made  him  a  master  politician  and  a 
dominant  figure  in  his  age;  and 
Luther  himself,  fairly  dazzled  by  the 
splendor  in  which  he  found  himself, 
but  holding  tight  that  inner  loyalty 
which  had  the  seed  of  the  Reforma- 
tion in  it — all  these  were  a  back- 
ground for  a  series  of  swiftly  moving 
events  which  came  to  a  climax  in 
Luther's  unhesitating  stand — one 
man_ag;ainst jthe  world!  How  little 
his  friends  were  able  openly  to  protect 
him  was  seen  when  he  was  secretly 
carried  off  to  the  Wartburg  for 
safety,  while  men  of  light  and  lead- 
72 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

ing  like  Albert  Durer  mourned  him  as 
dead.  In  due  time  he  emerged  and 
about  his  leadership  the  New  World 
began  to  form. 

We  have  already  indicated  that 
Luther's  own  interests  were  religious 
I  and  not  political.  His  services  to  de- 
mocracy were  all  a  by-product  of  his 
loyalty  to  his  religious  mission.  This 
will  help  us  to  understand  how  so 
great  an  incarnation  of  the  very 
genius  of  democracy  became  in  a  very 
practical  and  real  way  its  foe. 

The  peasants  of  Germany  had  long 
been  restless  under  the  pressure  of 
,  manifold  injustices.    To  them  the  ap- 
/  pearance  of  Luther  was  like  the  blast 
of  a  trumpet.     He  was  one  of  their 
\  own  number.     He  came  out  of  their 
\life.     He  knew  their  lot.     His  prin- 
ciples would  emancipate  them.     He 
would  be  their  friend. 

So  when  the  great  peasants'  upris- 
ing came  in  1524  Luther  may  be  char- 
73 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

acterized  as  almost  its  patron  saint. 
The  demands  of  the  peasants  were,  on 
the  whole,  just  and  in  some  regards 
surprisingly  reasonable.  They  had 
real  and  deep  wrongs.  They  claimed 
necessary  and  essential  rights. 
Luther  saw  the  reasonableness  of 
their  position.  He  knew  the  hardness 
of  their  lot. 

Then  came  an  ugly  and  terrible 
dilemma.  There  were  excesses  on 
the  part  of  the  peasants.  There  be- 
gan to  spread  over  Germany  the  sense 
that  Luther's  movement  meant  the 
breaking  of  every  old  tie  and  the  tear- 
ing apart  of  every  old  sanction.  His 
foes  saw  in  him  an  apostle  of  anarchy 
in  whose  presence  no  old  principle 
was  sacred  and  no  old  standard  safe. 
A  thousand  forces  of  unrest  were 
ready  to  use  his  name.  Cautious  and 
steady  men  everywhere  were  ready  to 
draw  back.  It  was  a  critical  moment 
in  Luther's  career.  Would  he  go 
74 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

down  as  a  prophet  of  chaos  from 
whom  all  right-thinking  men  turned 
away,  or  would  he  be  able  to  pilot  his 
ship  through  the  storm  and  make 
port  in  safety  with  the  religious  re- 
sults of  the  Reformation  secure? 

To  Luther  the  situation  seemed 
perfectly  clear.  The  only  way  to  save 
his  religious  work  was  to  cut  clear 
from  the  peasants'  insurrection.  He 
did  not  hesitate.  He  turned  against 
them  with  remorseless  energy.  He 
advised  that  they  be  cut  down  merci- 
lessly, and  with  terrible  literalness  his 
monitions  were  heeded  by  the  princes. 
The  peasant  insurrection  perished  in 
a  river  of  blood.  And  the  fairest 
hopes  of  the  peasant  group  perished 
with  it.  More  bitter  wrongs,  more 
hopeless  servitude  weighed  heavily 
upon  the  peasant  group.  Luther's 
name  was  no  more  quoted  with  joy- 
ous hope.  The  peasants  regarded 
him  as  a  renegade  and  a  traitor. 
75 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

With  our  present  social  vision  and 
sympathy  it  is  not  quite  easy  for  us 
to  be  just  to  Luther.  What  seems 
commonplace  to  us  had  not  become 
clear  to  him.  He  was  a  religious 
leader  who  saw  his  work  seemingly 
about  to  be  overwhelmed  in  the  peas- 
ant uprising,  and  he  sought  what  he 
felt  was  the  only  way  to  keep  his  work 
from  perishing  from  the  earth.  We 
must  realize  that  all  the  implications 
of  Luther's  assertion  of  the  rights  of 
the  individual  could  not  be  worked 
out  in  one  generation  or  one  century. 
If  Luther  had  tried  to  be  a  political  as 
well  as  a  religious  reformer  it  is  al- 
most certain  that  he  would  have  failed 
in  both.  None  the  less  it  is  true  that 
the  crushing  of  the  peasants  is  a  sad, 
dark  tragedy  of  which  we  cannot  even 
think  without  pain. 

But  this  is  not  the  end  of  the 
matter.  From  this  day  on  Luther  de- 
veloped an  increasing  distrust  of  the 
,      76 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

common  people.  More  and  more  his 
interests  and  his  confidences  were  re- 
moved from  the  group  from  which  he 
had  sprung.  More  and  more  he 
trusted  in  the  princes  for  the  sustain- 
ing of  the  Reformation.  More  and 
more  he  beHeved  in  the  benevolent 
authority  of  the  few  rather  than  the 
rights  of  the  many.  The  great  things 
were  to  be  the  gift  of  a  few  wise 
leaders  to  the  thoughtless  incapable 
mass  of  men.  A  noble  paternalism 
became  Luther's  ideal  in  church  and 
state. 

In  after  days,  when  Luther  became 
the  national  hero,  this  conception  of 
his  entered  deeply  into  the  life  of  Ger- 
many. His  later  attitude  of  distrust 
of  common  men,  rather  than  his  ear- 
lier example  of  supreme  democracy, 
became  a  part  of  the  thought  of  his 
people.  Of  course  many  other  influ- 
ences entered  in.  But  we  cannot  free 
Luther  from  a  genuine  and  important 
17 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

share  in  responsibility  for  a  temper 
on  the  part  of  Germany  which  issued 
in  paternaHsm  rather  than  in  democ- 
racy. When  a  man  becomes  the  idol 
of  a  nation's  memory  his  weaknesses 
as  well  as  his  strength  will  enter 
deeply  into  the  national  life.  So  it 
happened  with  Luther. 

Here  we  have  the  explanation  of 
the  curious  paradox  which  Luther's 
life  presents.  At  heart  he  was  the 
mighty  democrat  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury. His  action  at  Worms  was  the 
very  charter  in  action  of  democ- 
racy. But  the  hard  experiences  of 
later  years  made  him  believe  that  the 
people  must  receive  from  their  princes 
what  they  could  not  be  trusted  to  se- 
cure nobly  for  themselves.  And  less 
and  less  as  years  went  by  was  he  cap- 
able of  seeing  the  political  implica- 
tions of  his  own  life. 

The  important  matter  is  to  appeal 
from  the  Luther  of  later  years  to  the 
78 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

Luther  of  the  Diet  of  Worms.  When 
the  spirit  of  the  earher  Luther  has 
captured  his  native  land,  Germany 
will  be  a  Democracy  indeed.  And  in 
the  meantime  we  must  never  forget 
that  in  his  deepest  achievement 
Luther  did  more  than  to  serve  the 
cause  of  religion.  Life  is  organic, 
and  a  principle  fully  operative  in  one 
realm  will  break  over  into  others.  In 
the  Reformation  organization  faces 
limitations  which  it  must  admit  when 
it  confronts  the  meaning  of  the  life  of 
the  individual  man.  And  the  lonely 
monk  standing  dauntless  against  em- 
peror and  pope  is  niore  than  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  religious  rights  of 
the  individual.  He  is  the  unconscious 
prophet  of  political  democracy.  ^a'^'- 

The  Reformation  is  like  a  vast  for-   <^tvon^ 
est  in  which  it  is  easy  to  lose  your     -i^*'^ 
way.    Political,  social,  economic,  and 
religious     influences     were     playing 
upon  every  leader  and  every  move- 
79 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

ment.  We  may  easily  mistake  the 
incidental  for  the  essential.  If  we 
think  of  the  Reformation  as  an  essen- 
tially religious  movement,  constantly 
relating  itself  to  a  complicated  and 
entangled  political  situation,  we  shall 
not  go  far  wrong.  And  if  we  add  to 
the  religious  result  of  the  Reforma- 
tion an  uncommon  propulsion  of  the 
world  toward  democracy,  we  shall  see 
the  political  corollary  of  the  move- 
ment which  is  of  most  far-reaching 
meaning. 

Political  liberty  is,  after  all,  the 
child  of  religious  liberty.  And  the 
two  are  true  descendants  of  the  Re- 
formation. 


80 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 


LECTURE  IV 

COMPLETING  THE 
REFORMATION 

The  Reformation  is  like  Tenny- 
son's brook.  Men  may  come  and  men 
may  go,  but  it  goes  on  forever.  And 
sometimes  it  must  be  confessed  that 
it  is  like  those  streams  which  flow- 
part  of  their  course  underground,  and 
then  when  they  seem  quite  lost  to  the 
world  suddenly  emerge  again  into  the 
clear  light  of  day.  Indeed,  some  cyn- 
ical observers  might  declare  that  the 
assertion  as  to  the  continual  potency 
of  the  forces  which  made  the  Refor- 
mation can  only  be  justified  by  faith. 
But  in  this  case  there  is  an  appeal  to 
facts  as  well  as  to  faith,  and  the  facts 
prove  the  perpetual  vitality  of  the 
8i 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

creative   and   energizing    forces    set 
loose  by  the  Reformation. 

The  rapid  reading  of  history  is  a 
good  deal  like  taking  a  ride  in  an 
amusement  park  on  one  of  those  start- 
ling givers  of  thrills  vividly  called 
''roller-coasters.'*  There  are  many 
sudden  ups  and  downs  and  there  is 
not  that  quiet  and  stately  progress 
which  the  staid  and  proper  historian 
might  desire.  The  period  after  the 
Reformation  brings  us  to  an  intel- 
lectual situation  which  is  not  very 
inspiring.  The  era  of  Protestant 
scholasticism  is  unlovely  enough. 
Men  kept  the  skeleton  of  the  Refor- 
mation, but  they  had  lost  its  heart. 
They  had  the  bones  of  the  movement, 
but  its  life  was  gone.  It  is  worth  our 
while  to  see  in  an  intimate  way  one 
aspect  of  the  changed  emphasis  which 
produced  this  situation.  We  may 
connect  it  with  the  meaning  attached 
to  the  word  '^faith.''    To  Luther  faith 

'^2 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

meant  vital  personal  appropriation. 
To  the  age  of  Protestant  scholasti- 
cism faith  meant  intellectual  assent. 
To  Luther  the  leaping  out  of  the 
whole  personality  to  receive  and  de- 
pend upon  the  message  of  salvation, 
the  decisive  act  of  trust,  was  the  cen- 
tral matter  in  faith.  To  the  Protes- 
tant scholastic  the  truth  carefully 
articulated  and  expressed  in  adequate 
formulas  was  a  body  of  doctrine  to 
be  definitely  received — and  that  was 
faith.  Now,  whenever  the  formula  is 
taken  instead  of  the  reality  which  the 
formula  represents  there  is  a  tragic 
movement  toward  lifelessness.  You 
cannot  take  the  formula  H2O  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  water,  and  the  principle  is 
equally  sound  as  regards  the  water  of 
life. 

This  is  not  an  attack  upon  close  and 

definite  thinking.     The  reality  does 

correspond    to    a    definite    analysis. 

And  mistakes  here  may  be  tragic. 

83 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

The  old  College  nonsense  rhyme  ex- 
presses it  clearly  enough: 

"Poor  Willie  is  gone  from  us. 
We'll  see  his  face  no  more : 
For  what  he  thought  was  HgO 
Was  H2SO,." 

You  want  to  be  sure  of  your  reality. 
But  none  the  less  even  a  true  formula 
can  never  be  a  substitute  for  the  thing 
which  it  represents. 

The  subtle  change  of  emphasis  by 
which  faith  began  to  be  thought  of  as 
intellectual  acceptance  rather  than 
vital  appropriation  brought  a  barren 
and  arid  period  to  German  theology 
which  suggests  a  desert  with  burning 
sands  and  hot  winds  everywhere. 

But  the  river  emerged,  and  no- 
where with  more  effect  than  in  the 
work  of  Schleiermacher.  Quite 
definitely  now  a  Christian  experience 
is  made  the  basis  of  Christian  theol- 
ogy. And  without  stopping  to  an- 
84 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

alyze  the  relation  of  the  Pietists  to  the 
whole  movement,  we  may  say  that 
since  Schleiermacher  the  relation  of 
a  living  Christian  experience  to  a  liv- 
ing theology  has  been  increasingly 
recognized.  Here  we  come  upon  a 
principle  whose  corollaries  are  yet  to 
be  completely  worked  out.  Men  like 
Bushnell  and  Dale — far  apart  as  they 
are  in  some  regards — illustrate  in 
striking  fashion  what  new  quality 
comes  into  a  theology  constantly  fed 
by  the  fresh  fountains  of  the  Chris- 
tian life.  It  is  a  curious  and  anomal- 
ous thing  that  Methodism,  with  its 
continued  and  effective  emphasis  upon 
Christian  experience,  has  never  pro- 
duced a  theologian  who  has  worked 
out  the  implications  of  this  position 
in  such  a  fashion  as  to  command  the 
attention  of  the  whole  Christian 
Church. 

The  Methodist  Schleiermacher  is 
yet  to  come.    And  when  he  comes,  if 
85 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

he  gathers  all  the  aspects  of  the  em- 
phasis of  his  ecclesiastical  group  upon 
Christian  experience  and  interprets 
all  this  material  in  a  theology  drip- 
ping with  vitality,  he  will  be  one  of 
the  great  theologians  of  the  Christian 
Church.  Methodism  owes  this  debt 
to  the  Church  catholic.  Its  very 
genius  should  be  expressed  in  a  theol- 
ogy electric  with  the  energy  of  actual 
experience  of  the  things  of  men  and 
the  things  of  God.  When  this  is  done 
the  significance  of  Methodism  in 
theology  will  reach  the  level  of  its 
significance  in  evangelism. 

But  more  to  the  point  is  the  fact 
that  such  a  product  will  have  its  share 
in  working  out  the  implications  of  the 
Reformation.  John  Wesley  dated  his 
conversion  from  the  hour  at  Alders- 
gate  when  he  heard  a  reading  of 
Luther's  exposition  of  Paul's  doctrine 
of  justification  by  faith.  The  life 
which  made  the  Reformation  and  the 
86 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

life  which  made  Methodism  are  one, 
and  that  Hfe  must  find  its  adequate 
expression  in  a  theology  deHberately 
built  about  it  as  a  defining  principle. 

The  appeal  to  life  and  its  command- 
ing experience  which  was  so  deep  in 
the  movement  of  Luther  found  sig- 
nificant philosophical  expression. 
Kant's  Critique  of  Practical  Reason 
involves  this  very  principle  lifted  to  a 
commanding  place  in  philosophical 
speculation. 

Albrecht  Ritschl  grasped  the  same 
principle  and  in  his  theory  of  value 
judgments  brought  it  back  into  theol- 
ogy. The  pragmatists  have  given  it 
a  range  and  a  position  which  would 
make  it  the  all-inclusive  matter  in  phi- 
losophy. When  they  use  it  as  a 
method  for  reaching  the  real  they  do 
good  work.  When  they  exalt  it  to 
metaphysical  significance  and  deny 
that  there  is  any  reality  outside  it, 
they  cause  grave  questions  to  arise  in 
87 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

our  minds.  For  all  this,  it  is  clear 
that  the  appeal  to  experience  has  come 
to  exert  a  wide  influence  and  to  stay 
in  philosophy  as  in  theology. 

Three  principles  involved  in  the 
Reformation  which  must  yet  be 
worked  out  more  fully  deserve  our 
close  consideration.  Two  were  ex- 
plicit. One  was  implicit.  Put  in  per- 
sonal fashion  they  may  be  phrased 
thus: 

I.  No  man  has  a  right  to  come  be- 
tween me  and  God. 

IL  No  man  has  a  right  to  come  be- 
tween me  and  truth. 

III.  No  man  has  a  right  to  come 
between  me  and  my  fellow  men. 
They  may  also  be  expressed  in  this 
way: 

I.  Every  man  his  own  priest. 

II.  Every  man  his  own  prophet. 

III.  Every  man  a  personal  worker 
for  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  among  his  fellow  men. 

88 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

We  will  examine  them  in  a  more  de- 
tailed fashion. 

I.  The  principle  of  justification  by 
faith  makes  religion  a  sharply  indi- 
vidual matter.  No  priest  has  a  right 
to  a  place  between  a  man  and  God. 
No  church  rite  is  an  essential  medium 
without  which  the  divine  grace  can- 
not reach  the  human  heart.  No  eccle- 
siastical machinery  of  salvation  is  an 
essential  part  of  the  soul's  reaching 
vital  contact  with  God.  Every  Chris- 
tian belongs  to  the  priesthood.  And 
he  enters  the  brotherhood  by  an  act 
of  personal  trust.  Not  something 
done  for  him  in  a  churchly  act  at  the 
word  of  a  priest,  but  something  done 
in  him  in  response  to  an  act  of  per- 
sonal self-commitment  constitutes  the 
central  matter  in  religion. 

To  be  sure,  there  is  one  great  priest 
in  whose  priesthood  no  man  shares. 
There  is  one  mighty  deed  of  suffer- 
ing rescue  which  places  Calvary  alone 
89 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

among  the  achievements  of  the  world. 
But  this  priest  has  not  delegated  his 
work  to  others,  and  this  need  is  not 
repeated  in  the  miracle  of  the  mass. 
Jesus  Christ  is  God  in  human  life. 
And  no  churchly  ceremony  and  no 
church  official  has  a  right  to  claim  a 
defining  and  necessary  place  between 
the  human  soul  and  the  living  Christ. 
Of  course  a  man  must  hear  of 
Christ  in  order  to  believe  in  him. 
And  in  this  sense  the  church  is  an  in- 
strument for  bringing  the  gospel  to 
men.  But  the  man  who  hears  must 
find  the  moment  of  crisis  in  his  own 
decision  and  his  own  trust.  And  he 
trusts  not  in  the  church  which 
brought  him  the  message.  He  trusts 
not  in  the  forms  or  officials  of  an 
august  institution.  He  trusts  directly 
in  the  living  Christ  who  died  for  him. 
In  this  profound  sense  no  man  has  a 
right  to  come  between  another  man 
and  Christ.  In  this  deep  fashion  of 
90 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

approaching  God  through  a  personal 
act  and  not  through  a  necessary 
churchly  rite,  every  man  is  his  own 
priest. 

One  is  walking  in  high  places  as 
religion  is  kept  personal.  Many  men 
become  dizzy,  and  there  is  a  constant 
tendency  to  lower  the  pressure  of  re- 
ligion by  making  it  more  a  matter  of 
ritual  and  less  a  matter  of  personal 
relationship.  The  ritual  which  is  the 
expression  of  a  personal  relationship 
is  a  noble  thing.  The  ritual  which 
is  a  substitute  for  a  personal  relation- 
ship is  the  beginning  of  a  process  by 
which  religion  is  emasculated.  The 
completing  of  the  Reformation  from 
the  standpoint  of  this  principle  in- 
volves a  perpetual  testing  of  ecclesias- 
tical forms  of  their  capacity  to  min- 
ister to  personal  relationships.  You 
have  to  watch  religion  to  keep  it  from 
drifting  back  into  magic. 

II.  The  right  of  private  judgment 
91 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

has  secured  a  fairly  real  place  in  the 
modern  world.  We  believe  that  no 
man  has  a  right  to  stand  between 
another  man  and  truth.  In  the  sense 
of  a  direct  personal  grapple  with 
truth,  and  the  right  of  a  fearless  indi- 
vidual declaration  of  it,  we  have  a 
democratic  sense  of  the  meaning  of 
the  phrase  "every  man  his  own 
prophet/' 

Freedom  to  teach  and  freedom  to 
learn  are  in  process  of  being  gen- 
uinely established  in  our  colleges  and 
universities.  The  scientist  who  de- 
clared that  he  never  got  very  far 
without  being  confronted  by  the 
words,  "No  Thoroughfare,"  signed 
"Moses,"  belonged  to  an  earlier  gen- 
eration. The  battle  for  freedom  has 
been  fought  and  in  most  lines  of  intel- 
lectual activity  has  been  securely  won. 

We  are  beginning  now  to  ask 
further  questions.  We  are  begin- 
ning to  feel  that  freedom  itself  must 
92 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

be  justified  by  its  fruits.  We  are 
beginning  to  inquire,  "Freedom  for 
what  ?"  We  are  beginning  to  under- 
stand that  just  abstract  freedom  is 
not  a  good  thing  unless  it  is  put  to 
good  uses. 

All  this  is  a  movement  toward  a 
fuller  appreciation  of  what  was  really 
very  deeply  involved  in  the  Refor- 
mation. The  right  of  private  judg- 
ment was  a  right  to  be  exercised  in 
the  name  of  something  real  and  vital 
and  true. 

It  was  not  to  be  an  instrument  of 
anarchy.  It  was  to  be  a  method  of 
loyalty  to  the  deepest  things  in  human 
life  in  its  contact  with  the  unseen. 
The  right  of  private  judgment  does 
not  mean  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  be- 
lieve in  anything  at  any  time  in  any 
way.  It  means  that  he  has  a  right  to 
discover  what  is  involved  in  being 
completely  loyal  to  the  integrity  of 
his  own  inner  life,  to  his  growing  vi- 
93 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

sion  of  truth,  and  then  to  stand  in 
unalterable  faithfulness  by  these 
things. 

Without  doubt  some  men  are  char- 
acterized by  greater  insight  than  is 
possessed  by  others.  Some  men  come 
with  living  words  to  tell  men  that 
which  had  not  come  within  their 
mental  or  moral  horizon.  The  man 
who  insists  upon  his  own  prophetic 
position  does  not  turn  from  such 
leadership,  but  he  insists  on  his  right 
to  test  it.  He  insists  on  his  right  to 
measure  it  by  the  dim  and  yearning- 
outreaches  of  his  own  soul,  by  the 
sense  of  need  it  awakens,  by  the  deep 
places  in  his  life  to  which  it  calls. 
Even  when  a  man  follows  another 
man's  guidance  he  follows  as  one  who 
in  the  freedom  of  the  mind  facing  its 
own  deep  demands  feels  impelled  to 
follow. 

It  is  also  true  that  there  is  a  com- 
munity consciousness  which  comes 
94 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

pressing  upon  a  man.  He  does  not 
find  his  way  alone.  He  finds  his  way 
as  one  of  a  company  of  struggHng 
and  growing  minds.  Some  of  them 
are  fooHsh,  and  they  all  cry  for  a 
hearing.  The  right  of  private  judg- 
ment does  not  mean  that  a  man  ig- 
nores these  minds.  It  means  that  he 
discriminates  among  these  minds. 
They  have  a  real  place  in  the  process. 
But  they  do  not  coerce  and  overwhelm 
the  individual. 

There  is  the  pressure  of  the  age- 
long Christian  consciousness  upon  the 
individual  mind.  It  must  be  heard. 
It  must  be  taken  very  seriously.  It 
may  shock  a  man  into  consciousness 
of  folly  and  inadequacy  and  failure. 
But  not  even  its  pressure  can  override 
the  deepest  sense  of  personal  integ- 
rity. The  Christian  consciousness  is 
a  perpetual  aid  and  guide.  It  is  not  a 
tyrannical  master. 

The  working  out  of  this  principle 
95 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

involves  the  constant  endeavor  to  use 
freedom  as  a  method  for  discovering 
the  deepest  truth  in  the  individual,  in 
society,  and  in  relation  to  God  as 
these  emerge  in  actual  experience.  It 
is  human  life  being  loyal  to  its  own 
meaning  and  to  all  that  is  taught  by 
its  own  experience. 

III.  The  two  principles  which  we 
have  already  discussed  were  very 
clearly  a  part  of  the  essential  meaning 
of  the  Reformation  movement  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  The  third  did  not 
come  to  such  clear  and  visible  form. 
It  was  implicit  rather  than  explicit. 
But  for  all  that,  it  is  one  of  the  most 
important  principles  of  the  Reforma- 
tion. And  it  is  particularly  signifi- 
cant for  the  life  of  to-day.  This  third 
principle  is  that  no  man  has  a  right  to 
stand  between  a  man  and  his  fellow 
men.  It  implies  the  responsibility  ot 
every  Christian  for  the  advancement 
of  the  kingdom  of  God.  With  the 
96 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

practical  apotheosis  of  the  church, 
naturally  the  clergy  would  be  consid- 
ered experts  to  deal  with  matters  of 
salvation.  To  the  clergy  men  would 
look  for  guidance  in  the  way  of  life. 
The  priesthood  had  a  logical  and 
unique  position  in  all  matters  pertain- 
ing to  the  bringing  of  the  soul  to  God. 

But  once  admit  the  fundamental 
Protestant  principles,  once  acknowl- 
edge that  every  Christian  is  a  priest 
and  every  Christian  is  a  prophet,  and 
it  must  immediately  follow  that  every 
Christian  ought  to  be  an  evangelist. 
The  laymen  have  no  right  to  employ 
the  ministers  to  be  experts  in  the  of- 
fering of  salvation.  Every  Christian 
must  be  an  expert  in  pointing  to  the 
open  door  which  leads  to  God.  Lay- 
men have  no  right  to  employ  a  min- 
ister to  be  their  substitute  in  doing 
personal  work.  Every  Christian 
must  be  a  personal  worker. 

Now,  it  is  a  curious  thing  that  in 
97 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

this  important  regard  most  Protes- 
tant churches  are  essentially  Roman 
Catholic.  They  employ  their  minister 
to  do  what  comes  as  an  essential  re- 
sponsibility upon  every  individual 
Christian.  They  are  willing  to  ac- 
cept the  privileges  the  Reformation 
has  brought  to  them.  They  glory  in 
the  right  of  immediate  access  to  God 
unhindered  by  priest  or  ceremony. 
They  glory  in  the  right  of  private 
judgment.  But  the  great  responsi- 
bility implicit  in  the  heart  of  the  Re- 
formation, the  solemn  demand  which 
comes  to  every  Christian  to  have  his 
personal  share  in  winning  men  to 
Christ,  they  too  often  ignore.  They 
resemble  those  men  who  are  willing 
enough  to  accept  every  boon  which 
Democracy  confers,  but  who  are  not 
at  all  willing  to  accept  the  responsi- 
bilities which  Democracy  places  upon 
their  shoulders.  The  truly  Protestant 
church  is  a  church  where  every  mem- 
98 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

ber  is  a  personal  worker.  Every 
member  of  a  truly  Protestant  church 
is  one  of  its  pastors.  The  minister 
has  an  administrative  but  not  a  sacer- 
dotal position.  The  whole  church  is 
mobilized  for  the  tasks  of  the  king- 
dom of  God. 

One  or  two  other  matters  deserve 
final  consideration.  Luther's  rela- 
tion to  matters  of  nationality  is  one 
of  them.  He  was  the  typical  German. 
He  is  the  nation's  hero.  He  did  much 
to  create  the  German  language  and 
gave  characteristic  form  to  the  Ger- 
man spirit.  He  gave  an  inner  spirit- 
ual unity  to  Germany  felt  even  in  the 
south  where  Rome  kept  its  hold — cen- 
turies before  Bismarck  achieved  the 
final  and  completely  effective  making 
of  Germany  into  one  nation. 

When  Luther  began  to  translate 

the  Bible  into  German  he  might  have 

tried  to  use  German  w^ords  and  keep 

the  Latin  spirit.     He  was  very  fa- 

99 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

miliar  with  Latin.  He  knew  its  fine 
sonorous  dignity.  He  knew  its  rela- 
tion to  a  stately  and  glorious  past. 
But  he  did  not  make  a  book  to  be  the 
echo  of  a  great  past.  He  made  a 
book  to  be  the  inspiration  of  a  great 
future.  He  picked  live  German  words 
and  vital  German  phrases,  and  re- 
vealed to  a  surprised  world  the  ca- 
pacity of  the  German  tongue  for  ef- 
fective and  compelling  and  vigorous 
expression.  He  was  coming  to  know 
something  of  Greek  at  this  time.  He 
might  have  tried  to  make  a  Bible 
Greek  in  spirit  but  German  in  words. 
What  a  travesty  of  a  book  it  would 
have  been!  Instead  he  listened  to 
the  very  breathings  of  the  spirit  of 
his  own  people.  And  he  translated 
the  Bible  into  a  tongue  which  was  re- 
fashioned into  new  energy  and  qual- 
ity through  his  use  of  it.  He  was 
loyal  to  the  potential  present  and  not 
merely  to  the  stately  past. 

100 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

America  needs  to  ponder  deeply 
this  aspect  of  Luther's  activity.  We 
are  eager  listeners  to  voices  from  over 
the  sea.  Ancient  and  modern  civili- 
zations have  spoken  right  potently  to 
us,  and  it  has  become  a  profound  ne- 
cessity that  we  should  do  for  the 
America  of  to-day  what  Luther  did 
for  the  Germany  of  his  time.  We 
must  listen  to  the  breathings  of  the 
spirit  of  America.  We  must  believe 
in  the  genius  of  our  land.  We  must 
discover  its  inner  potencies.  We 
must  be  loyal  to  its  dimly  realized 
possibilities.  And  so  from  the  deep 
and  glorious  common  human  ex- 
perience of  this  continent,  up  from 
the  inarticulate  life  of  the  men  of  this 
land  shall  come  a  quality  of  life,  a 
type  of  culture,  a  contribution  to 
civilization,  which  shall  be  our  gift  to 
the  world.  We  may  love  the  old 
voices.  We  must  speak  our  own 
tongue.    If  Luther  were  alive  among 

lOI 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

us,  he  would  be  the  supreme  exponent 
of  the  American  spirit. 

Another  matter  presses  for  atten- 
tion. Luther  never  forgot  the  mean- 
ing of  soHdarity.  Like  the  rest  of  the 
world's  greatest  reformers,  he  had  a 
profound  sense  of  the  need  of  conser- 
vation. He  wanted  to  carry  into  the 
new  every  really  valuable  thing  in  the 
old.  Like  John  Wesley,  who  never 
severed  his  relation  with  the  Anglican 
Church,  Luther  had  a  highly  de- 
veloped sense  of  loyalty  to  everything 
which  seemed  good  in  the  ancient 
way  of  life  and  worship.  Although 
he  broke  down  many  things  he  was 
not  an  iconoclast  in  spirit.  He  did  not 
believe  in  the  pope's  final  authority, 
and  he  did  not  believe  in  the  power  of 
the  church  to  stifle  the  individual,  but 
he  did  believe  in  the  church.  He 
knew  that  men  come  to  their  best  in 
relations  and  not  out  of  them.  He 
knew  that  Christianity  is  a  religion 

I02 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

of  relationships,  and  only  where  the 
life  of  man  was  crushed  or  thwarted 
by  its  too  great  claims  did  he  wish 
to  break  with  an  organized  form  of 
churchly  life.  He  was  not  an  eccle- 
siastical anarchist.  He  was  a  re- 
former of  profoundly  conservative  in- 
terests. 

The  men  who  are  at  the  task  of 
world-building  to-day  must  have  a 
deep  sense  of  solidarity  as  they  do 
their  work.  Liberty  is  not  the  denial 
of  solidarity.  It  is  the  interpretation 
of  solidarity  in  such  a  fashion  that  it 
protects  the  interests  of  the  growing 
individual  life  while  at  the  same  time 
it  keeps  constantly  before  it  the  com- 
mon good. 

Perhaps  the  point  where  modern 
Christian  consciousness  is  most  de- 
finitely supplementing  that  sixteenth- 
century  consciousness  which  we  asso- 
ciate with  the  Reformation  has  to  do 
with  the  social  expression  of  Chris- 
103 


THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE 

tianity.  We  have  a  new  sense  that 
the  inner  relations  must  become  the 
outer  relationships.  We  are  learning 
the  meaning  of  Christianity  for  the 
cleansing  of  the  political  life  of  the 
people,  for  the  building  of  economic 
life  about  principles  of  brotherhood, 
for  the  securing  of  fresh  air  and  good 
food  and  adequate  clothing  for  all  the 
people,  for  the  efficient  organization 
of  all  life  about  the  principles  of  Jesus 
in  a  fashion  which  goes  far  and  away 
beyond  the  vision  of  Luther  and  the 
sixteenth  century.  Even  in  all  this, 
however,  we  are  simply  realizing 
more  fully  the  meaning  of  that  em- 
phasis on  the  individual  life  which 
was  at  the  heart  of  the  Reformation. 
And  in  it  all  we  must  preserve  that 
inner  experience  whose  secret  Luther 
knew  so  well,  or  we  will  have  lost  the 
soul  from  the  wonderful  body  which 
we  are  seeking  to  form  for  the  world. 
One  word,  indeed,  sums  up  the 
104 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

meaning  of  the  Reformation.  The 
word  is  vitahty.  The  sixteenth  cen- 
tury was  a  century  of  reviving  life. 
Luther  embodied  that  hfe.  He 
fought  for  that  Hfe,  and  in  its  power 
he  brought  in  a  new  epoch  for  Europe 
and  the  world. 

The  great  quest  is  the  quest  for  life. 
If  we  obtain  God's  life  in  our  life,  if 
we  express  it  in  our  activities;  if  we 
express  it  in  all  our  relationships;  if 
we  put  it  in  command  of  our  com- 
merce and  our  industry;  if  we  put  it 
in  authority  lOver  our  international 
relationships;  if  we  express  it  in  our 
poetry  and  in  our  art  and  our  theol- 
ogy, if  we  let  it  possess  our  souls  and 
work  itself  through  every  aspect  of 
our  inner  and  outer  relationships, 
then  shall  the  vitality  of  the  twen- 
tieth century  be  like  that  of  the  six- 
teenth— but  vaster. 

Luther  fearlessly  applied  living 
principles  forged  in  the  heat  of  his 
105 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION 

experience  to  the  life  of  his  time. 
Those  who  complete  the  Reforma- 
tion must  do  this  very  thing  for  the 
life  of  to-day.  And  they  will  be  the 
creators  of  a  glorious  life  for  to-mor- 
row. 


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